My Take on Eating

Celeriac only looks scary! It's actually super tasty. It tastes like celery (as you might imagine) but the flavor is a little lighter and sweeter.

My take on eating boils down to these 3 things:

Keep it simple. Use good local stuff. Share meals with people you love.

Admittedly I’m pretty opinionated (and a purist at heart), BUT there’s actually a lot to this philosophy. I’m talking here about good nutrition as a product of enjoying what we eat.

Ironically, while we live in a highly nutrition–obsessed culture, our food supply is some of the most nutrient-depleted in the Western world.

The good news is that there's a solution: Without even talking about the ethics and sustainability of all this (although those causes are helped in the process), you can eat well AND really enjoy what you eat.

Here’s the key: Less over-thinking (start by removing the word “should” from your vocabulary) equals not only more pleasure, but also better nutrition. Eastern medicine will back me up here in that the more you enjoy your foods, the better your body receives and assimilates the nutrients.

A few simple guidelines go a long way. Here are the guidelines that I follow in my own life, and the guidelines that I recommend to my friends, family, and clients:

Buying some rutabaga at the Greenmarket in Brooklyn. Did you know it is one of the highest anti-fungal foods?

Enjoy a variety of good vegetables – local whenever possible.

Vary your cooking methods – sauté or roast in healthy oils, steam, eat raw, etc. Try them all! You never know what you might end up loving.

Eat your colors! Invite many different colors of vegetables to your plate.

Try all the different whole grains – even the less common ones like amaranth, buckwheat, and millet.

Choose mostly lean proteins.

Include some oily fish like wild salmon, sardines, mackerel.

If you’re vegetarian/vegan, include a lot of beans and legumes in your diet.

Experiment and have fun with plating things! Food that looks appealing gets the digestive process started and infuses your day with more creativity and pleasure.

At the end of the day it's about spending a little time with your food, appreciating it, and just enjoying the abundance that we are so lucky to have.